Afternoon summary
Rishi Sunak has refused to rule out having a government reshuffle on Friday. The Conservatives fear they will lose three byelections tomorrow, including in two seats where they had majorities of around 20,000 in 2019, and there is considerable speculation that Sunak may respond by bringing forward a reshuffle originally scheduled for September. (See 3.26pm.)
Updated
Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary at the Treasury, has joined those criticising Coutts for the way it has treated Nigel Farage. In an interview with LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, Macpherson said:
I think this is a worrying development. I also am worried that the bank had commented on Mr Farage’s income and wealth in public, at least it appeared to brief newspapers last week or the week before. And I think the government is responding to wider unease amongst all of us.
Getting a good service out of your bank is difficult enough at the best of times, but if they’re just going to make, on the face of it, fairly arbitrary decisions about your beliefs or politics, I think that is quite a dangerous development.
Rishi Sunak is addressing Tory MPs at a private meeting of the Conservative 1922 Committee. The Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan says the traditional table banging that greeted his arrival was rather over the top.
Rishi Sunak turned up a bit early for the 1922 Committee so had to hang about outside before entering to an absurd amount of performative banging on the tables from Tory MPs
— Lizzy Buchan (@LizzyBuchan) July 19, 2023
Without being in the room, it is hard to judge what this means. Maybe it was a sign that Tory MPs think he is doing brilliantly. Or maybe it was because they think it’s all going pear-shaped, but they feel under a duty to cheer him up.
Sunak condemns Coutts for closing down Nigel Farage's bank account on account of his views
At PMQs Rishi Sunak was twice asked about Nigel Farage having his bank account closed by Coutts. (See 10.22am and 10.44am.) In response, he said people should not lose access to banking services because of what they said, but he did not sound overly-outraged about what had happened. (See 12.28pm and 12.37pm.)
Subsequently, in a post on Twitter, Sunak firmed up his criticism. “Not right” became “wrong”. Sunak said:
This is wrong.
No one should be barred from using basic services for their political views.
Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy.
This is wrong.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) July 19, 2023
No one should be barred from using basic services for their political views.
Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy. https://t.co/8S8Rzyh9Si
Tories complain to Evening Standard about its mocking front page coverage of their mayoral candidate
The Conservatives have complained to the Evening Standard about its “contemptible” front page coverage of the selection of Susan Hall as the Tory candidate to be the capital’s mayor, PA Media reports.
Nickie Aiken, the Conservative party’s deputy chair, said the selection of the full-page picture of the London assembly member was “clear mockery”, suggesting there was a “whiff of misogyny”.
The accompanying headline asked “And the winner is?”, with further text suggesting that Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan is “odds-on to seal third victory”.
Susan Hall has been unveiled as the Tory candidate who will challenge Sadiq Khan in next year’s London mayoral elections #frontpage🗞️https://t.co/LwR1f5Sf79 pic.twitter.com/MlclxszWzK
— Evening Standard (@standardnews) July 19, 2023
Tory party chairman Greg Hands backed Aiken’s complaint to Standard editor Dylan Jones, saying the coverage was “extremely disappointing”.
In her letter shared on Twitter, Aiken said:
I am writing to you to express my sincere disappointment in your front page today.
Your choice of photo of Susan Hall is a clear mockery, and it is contemptible, especially as the first female candidate for London mayor from either of the two main parties.
V disappointed by the photo used by @EveningStandard of @Councillorsuzie announcing she’s @Conservatives candidate for London Mayor. I’ve written to the editor expressing my concerns - whiff of #misogyny? I would have expected better from London’s daily. #misogyninpolitics pic.twitter.com/r41aPK1mqZ
— Nickie Aiken MP #TwoCities (@twocitiesnickie) July 19, 2023
Sunak says he does not want to rush producing trans guidance for schools because it's 'complex and sensitive issue'
In his pooled interview at the Jaguar Land Rover HQ, Rishi Sunak was also asked when the guidance for schools on how to deal with trans pupils would be issued. It was due this week, but has reportedly been delayed because No 10 and Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, are pushing for restrictive guidance that would not comply with the Equality Act. (See 11.49am.)
Sunak replied:
This is a really complex and sensitive issue because it affects the wellbeing of our children, and it’s important that we get it right given those complexities and sensitivities.
I am committed to bringing forward that guidance.
But I want to make sure that we’ve taken the time to go through it properly, and when we do bring it forward, it will be well thought through.
Updated
Tata did not choose UK for £4bn battery factory just because of government subsidy, says Sunak
Rishi Sunak has said it was not just taxpayer money that enticed Tata to announce a new £4bn battery factory in the UK which will create thousands of jobs.
Speaking at the Jaguar Land Rover HQ in Warwick, he said:
When I was chancellor, I set up the automotive transformation fund, which was always there to provide targeted investment in strategic industries where we thought it would make sense.
But what is crucial about an investment like this is it’s not just going to be about that, it’s going to be about the quality of the workforce that we have here, the quality of our infrastructure, the road and rail connections, the approach to regulation, the competitiveness of our tax regime, which we have changed to make it more attractive for businesses to invest.
Downing Street has confirmed that the government has offered subsidies to the Tata Group, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, to secure the investment. But it has not yet said how much money is involved. (See 2.26pm.)
Sunak refuses to rule out reshuffle on Friday amid speculation shake-up could follow byelection defeats
Rishi Sunak has refused to rule out holding a reshuffle later this week.
With speculation growing that a long-planned reshuffle will take place on Friday, immediately after the three byelections the Tories are expected to lose, instead of in September, Sunak was asked this afternoon on a visit in Warwickshire if he would rule out such a move. He replied:
You would never expect me to comment on things like that. What I’m determined to do is just deliver on the priorities that I set out for the country – halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats – today what we saw with the inflation figures is that our plan is working.
In fact, prime ministers are happy to rule out imminent reshuffles when it suits them.
Aubrey Allegretti has a good account of why a reshuffle seems increasingly likely. He quotes a government source saying No 10 has been asking for resources “only used during reshuffles”. That sounds like a reference to the whiteboard Downing Street uses to show who might go where.
Updated
No 10 rejects claim London mayoral candidate Susan Hall will be liability for Tories
Rishi Sunak has given his backing to Susan Hall, elected today as the Tory candidate for London mayor, while not endorsing some of her views.
Speaking at the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s press secretary said Hall had Sunak’s “full support”.
But, when asked if Sunak, like Hall, was a supporter of Liz Truss’s mini-budget last year, the press secretary said:
[Sunak] has made the point that unfunded tax cuts and increased borrowing would fuel inflation.
Since he has been prime minister, he has taken a different approach and has done the right thing, and you can see from the statistics today that the plan is working.
Asked whether Sunak thought Hall was right to compare Donald Trump supporters storming the Capitol to remainers refusing to accept the result of the Brexit referendum, the press secretary said: “I don’t think the prime minister would characterise it in that way.”
And asked if Sunak agreed with Hall that Boris Johnson was an “awesome” prime minister, the press secretary said:
The prime minister has spoken about the many successes of the previous prime minister, including the rollout of the vaccine, getting Brexit done and his staunch support for Ukraine.
Asked if Hall would be a liability to the Conservative party, the press secretary replied:
No. She has shown great commitment to bettering London with the Conservatives and highlighting the many failures of Sadiq Khan, including his desire to charge people £12.50 a day – as the prime minister said – just to visit their GP.
Updated
More work needed to counter threat posed by 'incel' culture, Braverman tells MPs
Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy needs to do more work on the “violent trend” emerging from so-called incel (involuntary celibate) culture, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has said.
She was responding to Plymouth MP Luke Pollard, who linked the actions of the killer behind the 2021 Plymouth shootings to incel culture and violent misogyny and questioned why the trend currently fell out of the scope of Prevent, which aims to identify would-be terrorists.
There was only one mention of the incel threat in the government’s update to Contest, the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, which was published yesterday and was the subject of an urgent question in the Commons after PMQs.
The Contest update said:
It is possible that violent adherents to movements and subcultures, such as Involuntary Celibacy (incels), could meet the threshold of terrorist intent or action, should the threat or use of serious violence be used to influence the government, or to intimidate the public.
Bravermen offered to meet with Pollard to discuss what further steps could be taken, telling him:
Incel culture is not strictly within the Contest apparatus if you like but it does need work.
I readily accept this a violent trend. It is a radicalising influence. It is promoting a culture that is totally at odds with a free and safe democratic society that we all love and want to cherish.
I am very happy to speak to him about what further steps we could do.
Updated
No 10 defends use of government subsidy to bring gigafactory to UK, but won't yet reveal cost to taxpayer
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson refused to say what the government was spending in subsidies to bring the Tata Group’s gigafactory to the UK.
Asked about claims taxpayer support for the project could amount to £500m, or even £1bn, the spokesperson said:
Some of this stuff is commercially sensitive, it’s not in the UK’s interests to get into all the detail when negotiating with companies, but what shouldn’t be lost is the massive investment into the UK – £4bn, 4,000 direct jobs, thousands more indirect jobs.
Details would eventually emerge “as part of the regular transparency data”, he said.
But he also pointed out that the government had committed £850m to an automotive transformation fund. He went on:
In general, we are acting in line with our approach. We have the automotive transformation fund to develop these sorts of supply chains and unlock private investment in gigafactories such as this one.
The spokesperson said the use of public money was “an efficient way to drive massive investment into the UK, not only to help with net zero but to create jobs”.
Updated
Victims of past ban on LGBT people serving in military should receive compensation, report says
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, is making a statement to MPs about the review, chaired by Lord Etherton, about the impact of the ban on LGBT people serving in the military before the year 2000.
The report says compensation should be paid to people affected, with the total being paid out capped at £50m. It says:
An appropriate financial award should be made to affected veterans notwithstanding the expiry of litigation time limits.
The government’s overall exposure should be capped at £50m.
In his statement Wallace repeated the apology issued by Sunak. He said:
I was struck by one particular quote in the report from a veteran who said: ‘I don’t feel like I’m a veteran, I’ve never asked for help, I don’t feel like my service was recognised.’
Today we want to say to all those ex-soldiers, sailors and aviators, many now in retirement: you are one of us, you belong in our community and in choosing to put yourself in harm’s way for the good of your colleagues, your community and country, you have proven yourselves the best of us.
I say again to the veterans’ community I’m deeply sorry for what happened to you. The very tolerance and values of western democracy that we expected you to fight for, we denied to you, it was profoundly wrong.
I am determined as defence secretary, and as a veteran, to do all I can do today to right those historic wrongs so that you can once again take pride in your service and inspire future generations to follow in your footsteps.
Wallace said that the government in principle accepted “the vast majority” of the recommendations in the report, although he said it was still considering them.
One of the recommendations was that the PM should deliver an apology in parliament. Earlier I said Sunak did not have to deliver the apology at PMQs, but, having now read the recommendation, I think it would have been embarrassing for him if he had ignored it.
Updated
PMQs – snap verdict
The last PMQs before the summer recess matters a bit more than usual because, in normal circumstances, if a leader does badly, they can make up for it a week later. But if you flop just before the summer adjournment, you cannot redeem yourself until September, and your MPs will spend the summer with a reminder of your uselessness fresh in the memory. With that in mind, Keir Starmer should be feeling very comfortable this afternoon. Even those former advisers involved in the unlikely, even bonkers, leadership challenge plot described by the i this week would probably have to concede that he did a good job.
There were plenty of reasons why Starmer won this comfortably. He started with a conventional, simple question-that-involves-having-to-admit-something-embarrassing, and this made a decent point about hospital waiting lists, and he needled Rishi Sunak with a question about non-dom status. Much more memorable, though, were two jibes about Sunak missing PMs twice in a row, at least one of which sounded spontaneous, and both of which were funny. Pointing out that Sunak had got his age wrong too was a clear hit, not least because it does make you wonder why they can’t add up in No 10. Starmer’s date of birth is not a secret; it’s on Wikipedia.
What was much more important, though, was Starmer’s decision to attack the NHS workforce plan on the grounds that the government has not explained how it will be funded. This is what he said when he raised the point for the second time.
When [Sunak] said the workforce plan was fully costed, I have never seen the chancellor more bewildered.
It’s less than a year since his party crashed the economy with their unfunded spending commitments and he hasn’t learnt a thing. So, let me ask it another way: is his uncosted spending coming from more tax rises, more cuts, or is it just the latest promise to fall from the Tories’ magic money tree?
In response, Sunak said the autumn statement would show where the money was coming from, which half-confirmed Starmer’s point. As of now, it is not clear where the funding is coming from.
When opposition parties are weak or nervous, they stick to familiar territory. When they are on the ascendant, they attack on issues supposedly owned by their rivals. The Conservatives have in the past suggested they want to fight the election on economic responsibility, but Starmer and his colleagues have now in effect declared: “Bring it on”, with Rachel Reeves trying to outperform George Osborne on fiscal responsibility, Lucy Powell only yesterday appropriating “no money left” as an argument and now Starmer branding the Tories as the party of the magic money tree.
The economics of Labour’s positioning may be highly questionable. But the politics are clear; Starmer is hijacking electoral territory where the Tories thought they were impregnable.
Sunak had a difficult PMQs but it could have been a lot worse. He is probably about to lose three byelections, and his approval ratings have hit their lowest level, according to YouGov, since he became PM. In these circumstances, the fact that he could sort of hold his own, and the fact that his MPs did not turn on him, must count as a bonus.
Rishi Sunak's net favourability rating has fallen to the lowest level since he became prime minister
— YouGov (@YouGov) July 19, 2023
Favourable: 25% (-2 from 20-21 Jun)
Unfavourable: 65% (+4)
NET: -40 (down six)https://t.co/Dd7oGbFRGl pic.twitter.com/yzly91mNMv
Sunak’s main line of attack was to challenge Starmer to say whether or not he thinks that hospital consultants deserve a higher pay rise than they are getting. In the context of PMQs, this is a weak ploy, because is not Starmer’s job to answer questions, and at least twice the speaker reprimanded the PM for going “off topic”. But that does not mean these questions don’t have salience. Starmer can avoid them at PMQs, and not in an interview studio.
What was also interesting was Sunak’s unlikely emergence as a gay rights champion. He did not have to announce the apology to LGBT veterans at PMQs, and he condemned conversion practices unexpected strongly in response to a question from Alicia Kearns. (See 12.32pm.) Maybe this is just an attempt to quash claims that the government’s trans guidance for schools (see 11.49am) will mark the start of an ugly culture war campaign, but even if you doubt his sincerity, it is interesting that he felt the need to present his liberal credentials like this.
UPDATE: The final paragraph probably overstates the significance of Sunak’s decision to issue his apology to LGBT veterans at PMQs. He did not have to do it, but the Etherton review did recommend an apology by the PM in parliament, and it would have been embarrassing for Sunak to ignore this. However, the report did not specify how the apology should be worded. Sunak chose to describe the ban as “an appalling failure of the British state”. (See 12.03pm.)
Updated
Rishi Sunak has been forced to respond to questions about his expenses declaration over the funding of private jet travel to Tory events after Labour challenged him at prime minister’s questions about “why his story keeps changing”.
It comes after the Guardian reported that he was facing transparency questions over the travel and thousands of pounds in Conservative party donations after they were recorded as coming from a small company linked to a multimillionaire businessman.
Last week, he changed his expenses declaration over the funding. In the third change for the declaration, it now names the donor of £38,500 to pay for air travel by the prime minister and staff as Akhil Tripathi, a British-Indian medical tech entrepreneur who made a fortune from an anti-snoring device.
At PMQs the Labour MP Neil Coyle asked him:
Every single member of this house is required by law to confirm the true source of a donation before it is accepted or declared, so can the prime minister tell us if he followed all the rules all the time before he took thirty eight and a half thousand pounds of free air travel on 28 April and if so, why does his story keep changing about who paid?
Sunak replied:
All donations are declared in the normal way and as the honourable gentleman knows if there are administrative changes to that they are quickly corrected.
Rishi Sunak was forced at #PMQs to respond to questions about changes to his expenses declaration over the funding of private jet travel to Tory events
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) July 19, 2023
..Our original storyhttps://t.co/sxVDx5ysTj
Updated
Carla Lockhart (DUP) asks about support for children with cancer.
Sunak says he can imagine how difficult it is for families with a child with cancer. He will look at the issue Lockhart has raised, he says.
And that’s it. PMQs is over.
David Davis (Con) says NatWest’s customers should be worried about what happened to Nigel Farage. (NatWest owns Coutts). He says banks should be required to say how many accounts they have closed for similar reasons.
Sunak says the government is continuing to look at this issue.
UPDATE: Sunak said:
I know that [Davis] has spoken to the chancellor about this issue, and that he will continue to have those conversations. In the short term, having consulted on the payment service regulations, we intend to crack down on that practice by toughening the rules around account closures. In the meantime, the Financial Ombudsman Service is available for people to make complaints to.
Updated
Lee Anderson, the Tory deputy chair, asks about Keir Starmer’s stance on the two-child benefit cap.
Sunak says he does not think anyone believes Starmer supports the policy he is now backing.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, says Sunak has no responsibility for what Starmer does.
Barry Sheerman (Lab) says John Major has condemned Brexit as a catastrophic decision. Does Sunak agree?
Sunak says it was seven years ago. He says since the UK left the single market, the economy has grown faster than Germany’s.
Alicia Kearns (Con) asks if the government is still committed to a ban on conversion practices.
Sunak says “conversion therapy” is an “abhorrent practice”. He says the equalities minster will update MPs on what is happening in due course.
UPDATE: Kearns said:
Conversion therapy is quackery packaged up by bigots seeking to promote their hate and to profit from it. On 19 January, a minister promised at the dispatch box to bring forward a ban against conversion therapy and ensure that pre-legislative scrutiny was completed before the end of this parliamentary term. How does [Sunak] plan to continue that?
And Sunak replied:
I agree that conversion therapy is an abhorrent practice, and we need to do everything we can to stamp it out wherever we see it. [Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister] will continue to keep the house updated on her progress.
Updated
Mark Francois (Con) says 457 members of the armed forces were killed in Afghanistan. He says he was stunned to see a video posted by Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chair of the defence committee, praising the Taliban government.
My report from Afghanistan:
— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) July 17, 2023
Hold your breath - but this is a country transformed.
👉 security vastly improved
👉 corruption reduced
👉 opium trade ended
Shouting from afar will not improve women’s rights.
We need to re-engage.
We need to re-open the British Embassy. pic.twitter.com/q1VRIgbFtt
Francois says this was “silly and naive”. He asks Sunak to condemn it.
Sunak pays tribute to servicemen and women. The government will continue to call out human rights abuses, he says. But he says the government also has dialogue with regimes – without condoning what they do, he says.
He says he will look at the case Francois mentioned.
Updated
Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con) asks if there will be an inquiry into the cancellation of a bank account by a bank with the government as a shareholder. He seems to be referring to the Nigel Farage case, although he does not name him.
Sunak says people should not have their accounts closed for exercising the right to free speech. The rules are being tightened, to stop this happening, he says. In the meantime, people can complain to the ombudsman, he says.
UPDATE: Sunak said:
It would not be right if financial services were being denied to anyone exercising their right to lawful free speech. Our new Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 puts in place new measures to ensure that politically exposed persons are being treated in an appropriate and proportionate manner, and having consulted on the payments services regulations, we are in the process of cracking down on that practice by tightening the rules around account closures. But in the meantime, any individual can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has the power to direct a bank to reopen their account.
Updated
Sunak says the government has delivered the number one ask of the BMA, lifting the cap on pensions contributions. Doctors should get back to work, he says.
Greg Clark (Con) asks about the gigafactory announcement, and asks if the government will bring more such factories to the UK.
Sunak says this is one of the biggest investments in the car industry in the UK.
Dame Diana Johnson (Lab) asks why Sunak has been summoned to give evidence to the infected blood inquiry next week.
Sunak says the scandal should never have happened. He is due to give evidence shortly, so it would be inappropriate to say more now, he says.
Shailesh Vara (Con) says, if Labour favours economic migration, it should say so. He suggests young men arriving on small boats are not genuine asylum seekers.
(In fact, based on the number who actually do got their asylum applications considered, a majority of them are.)
Sunak says Vara is right. He says Labour does not have a plan to deal with illegal immigration.
Updated
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, says the two-child benefit cap has left 250,000 children in poverty. Does the PM take comfort from Labour’s support for it?
Sunak says he welcomes Labour’s support for it. But Keir Starmer has never kept a promise he has made, he says.
Flynn says Scots expect child poverty from the Tories. But not from Labour. A shiver is running along the Labour frontbench, he says, looking for a spine to go up.
Sunak says the best route out of poverty is through work. He says the government will reduce child poverty. He does not want to see any child grow up in poverty.
Updated
Starmer says he is 60, not 61.
He asks about the “40 new hospitals”. But there are not 40, they are not new, and many are not hospitals, he says.
Sunak claims 40 new hospitals are being built.
Referring to Hillingdon hospital (which serves Uxbridge), he says Labour wants to charge people visiting a hospital.
He is talking about the Ulez extension, a key issue in tomorrow’s Uxbridge byelection.
Updated
Starmer asks if Sunak is so committed to non-dom status that he won’t let the government raise money for the NHS by getting rid of it, as Labour would.
Sunak says Labour has promised to spend the non-dom money on five different things. He says he wants people to study maths until 18. Maybe, in Starmer’s case, they should be studying it until they are 61, he says.
He says Labour did set out plans for the workforce. But Labour’s plans did not cover retention of staff and NHS reform, he says.
Starmer suggests Sunak using 'magic money tree' to fund his NHS workforce plan
Starmer says Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, looked “bewildered” when Sunak said the plan was fully funded. Where is it coming from? The magic money tree?
Sunak says when the autumn statement is published, it will show the plan is fully funded.
He says, while Labour MPs are “back on the picket lines”, Starmer refuses to take a position.
Starmer should “stop taking inspiration from his friends outside and unglue himself from the fence”.
Starmer says Sunak has been away from PMQs for so long he has forgotten how it works.
He says Sunak nicked his NHS staffing plan from Labour.
But, unlike Labour, Sunak has not said how he would pay for it. “Where is the money coming from?”
Sunak says the plan is fully funded. And it was welcomed by 43 NHS stakeholders, he says.
He starts quoting figures about what the plan will achieve.
A&E waiting times in England are the best for two years. But in Wales NHS waiting times are the worst in the UK, he says.
Starmer says we do not get any more answers from Sunak when he is here than when he is not here. We know the answer, he says. (It is about 7.5m). Why is the government failing more patients than ever before?
Sunak says Starmer did not answer the question. If Starmer looked at what is happening, he would see the plans are working. Waits of one and a half years have been virtually eliminated. Ambulance waiting times are falling. But it has all been held up by industrial action in the NHS. Does Starmer agree doctors should accept the recommendations of the pay review bodies.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, tells Sunak the opposition asks the questions.
Updated
Keir Starmer welcomes the apology from Sunak. He says a constituent affected by it is in the chamber to hear what Sunak said.
There is more detail about the apology here.
He says the NHS waiting list was 7.2 million when Sunak took office. What is the figure today?
Sunak says cutting the waiting list has been affected by the strike action. Does Starmer agree consultants and junior doctors should accept the government’s pay deal?
Updated
Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, asks when the suicide prevention strategy will be published.
Sunak says it will come later this year. He says he knows how much this matters to Javid because of his brother.
Sunak issues apology on behalf of government for past ban on LGBT people serving in military
Rishi Sunak starts by saying the ban on LGBT people serving in the military until 2000 was a stain on the country. He says a report out today makes this clear. He goes on:
Today, on behalf of the British state, I apologise.
UPDATE: Sunak said:
The ban on LGBT people serving in our military until the year 2000 was an appalling failure of the British state decades behind the law of this land.
As today’s report makes clear, in that period many endured the most horrific sexual abuse and violence, homophobic bullying and harassment, all while bravely serving this country.
Today, on behalf of the British state, I apologise.
I hope all those affected will be able to feel proud parts of the veteran community that has done so much to keep our country safe.
Updated
Updated
Rishi Sunak to face Keir Starmer at PMQs
PMQs is starting soon.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Government guidance for schools in England on how to deal with pupils who want to transition has been delayed because No 10 and Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, have been pushing for a tough version that would be unlawful under the Equalities Act, Steven Swinford reports in a story for the Times. Swinford says:
The draft guidance stated that children should be allowed to socially transition with the consent of their parents, meaning that they could choose another pronoun or name and wear the uniform of the opposite sex.
But the government then commissioned legal advice from Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, about whether a ban on social transitioning in schools was possible. Last week she concluded that such a move would be unlawful and said that the government would need to pass new legislation if it wanted to go further …
A Whitehall source said that No 10 and Badenoch had put forward a series of proposals to strengthen the guidance. The strongest — and a reflection of the government’s concerns — was a blanket ban on social transitioning …
Prentis said that a blanket ban would be unlawful because the Equalities Act states that gender reassignment is a “protected characteristic”, regardless of age.
In a thread on Twitter, ITV’s Paul Brand says this illustrates how uneasy Rishi Sunak is dealing with “culture war” issues.
With a delay to both trans guidance for schools and the promised ban on conversion therapy, the government seems both divided and paralysed over how far to push the ‘culture war’ in relation to LGBT+ issues.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) July 19, 2023
1. On trans guidance there is a divide between Badenoch & Keegan, plus the small matter of govt’s own Attorney General flagging legal issues.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) July 19, 2023
2. On conversion therapy there are divides within Equalities team, tho it did agree a ban and put it in PM’s red box. But there it sits.
Part of the issue I think is that culture wars are not Rishi Sunak’s strong suit. When he first became PM sources close to Sunak told me he would happily leave that rhetoric to others. But he has been drawn in and must now make a decision about how far he wishes to go with it.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) July 19, 2023
Sunak is far more at home on economic issues and the more managerial aspects of govt. While his recent quip about whether a woman can have a penis etc signalled his willingness to engage on culture war issues, it sounded forced and out of his usual comfort zone.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) July 19, 2023
Updated
Keir Starmer has joined mourners in London for the funeral of Margaret McDonagh, Labour’s first female general secretary, PA Media reports. PA says:
Lady McDonagh died in June aged 61 and was hailed for her key role in Labour’s 1997 landslide election victory.
Her sister Siobhain McDonagh is the current Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden in south London.
Figures from across the party gathered for the service, including former prime ministers Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Other faces from the New Labour era, including Lord Mandelson, attended the Mass at St Boniface RC Church in Mitcham, alongside current shadow cabinet members including Emily Thornberry, Yvette Cooper, Ed Miliband and David Lammy.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was also in attendance.
Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA
Updated
My colleague Aubrey Allegretti says the SNP has been distributing mugs to journalists at Westminster suggesting “controls on family sizes” is now Labour policy. So it is not hard to work out what Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminter, will be raising at PMQs.
Three guesses what the SNP’s Stephen Flynn might raise at PMQs, after his team dropped these round the press gallery… pic.twitter.com/Hv4S9fxZWV
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) July 19, 2023
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MI6 chief urges Russians angry about Putin's war in Ukraine to spy for UK
The head of MI6 has urged Russians angry at Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine to spy for the UK, PA Media reports. Speaking in Prague, Sir Richard Moore said that while artificial intelligence (AI) was being used to help target the Kremlin’s war machine, technology would never replace human agents.
Moore said:
There are many Russians today who are silently appalled by the sight of their armed forces pulverising Ukrainian cities, expelling innocent families from their homes and kidnapping thousands of children.
They are watching in horror as their soldiers ravage a kindred country. They know in their hearts that Putin’s case for attacking a fellow Slavic nation is fraudulent, a miasma of lies and fantasy.
Moore said “many Russians are wrestling with the same dilemmas and the same tugs of conscience” as their predecessors did in 1968 when Soviet tanks crushed the Prague spring uprisings. He went on:
I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 months and join hands with us. Our door is always open.
We will handle their offers of help with the discretion and professionalism for which my service is famed. Their secrets will always be safe with us.
And together we will work to bring the bloodshed to an end.
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Just Stop Oil protesters staged a protest on Westminster Bridge this morning. Chris Philp, the policing minister, has welcomed the intervention by the police, who cleared the road after eight minutes.
He posted a tweet saying:
Glad the Police cleared the road in 8 mins. Westminster Bridge leads to a major A&E department at St Thomas’s Hospital. JSO are deliberately preventing people getting to hospital (and work, school etc) because they can’t win the argument by normal democratic means
Glad the Police cleared the road in 8 mins. Westminster Bridge leads to a major A&E department at St Thomas’s Hospital. JSO are deliberately preventing people getting to hospital (and work, school etc) because they can’t win the argument by normal democratic means https://t.co/puhzwtAxIa
— Chris Philp MP (@CPhilpOfficial) July 19, 2023
Farage claims UK heading for Chinese-style authoritarianism if banks allowed to reject customers due to their views
Nigel Farage, the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party, is encouraging people to read the full set of documents about him he obtained from Coutts using a subject access request. (See 10.22am.) They have been published by MailOnline.
Go to MailOnline now to see the full document from Coutts.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) July 19, 2023
It is full of bile and prejudice and I thought twice about making it public.
If you are a NatWest customer and supported Brexit they probably think the same about you. https://t.co/miI5GdkOzG
Farage told PA Media:
It is a document that is full of every negative thing that has ever been said about me, it is prejudicial in a way that only the metropolitan elite can do.
He also claimed that, if banks were allowed to reject customers because of their views, the UK was heading for Chinese-style authoritarianism. He said:
I think that the march of woke corporatism needs to be checked and if it is not then we will finish up with a Chinese-style social credit system.
Only those with acceptable views will be able to participate fully in society. I am effectively de-banked. How do I pay my gas bill? What have I done wrong? I haven’t broken the law. I happen to have an opinion on issues that is more popular outside the M25 than it is in inner London postcodes.
Susan Hall chosen as Conservative candidate for London mayor
Susan Hall has been chosen as the Conservative candidate for next year’s London mayoral election, after a turbulent selection process in which a series of early favourites were excluded or stepped down, Peter Walker reports.
My colleague Pippa Crerar says Sadiq Khan, the incumbent Labour mayor who will be fighting for an unprecedented third term next year, will be thrilled. Khan’s team view Hall as a “hard-right” figure out of touch with London’s values, she says.
Team Khan will be rubbing their hands with glee.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) July 19, 2023
They describe Hall - who supported Boris Johnson, Donald Trump & Brexit - as a "hard-right politician who couldn’t be more out of touch with our city and its values".
Shapps says Coutts' treatment of Nigel Farage 'disgraceful' after documents suggests his account closed due to his views
A few weeks ago Nigel Farage, the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party, claimed that his bank account was being closed because of his political views. At first he did not name the bank involved, but as the controversy escalated, with anti-bank stories appearing prominently in the pro-Brexit papers, the elite bank Coutts let it be known that it was closing Farage’s account. The BBC and other news organisations reported that Farage was being told to take his custom elsewhere, not because of his political views, but because there was not enough money in his account.
Now Farage has got hold of a document from the bank that suggests that this account was, at the very best, misleading. After making a subject access request, Farage obtained 40 pages of material held by the bank about him, including minutes from a meeting of Coutts’ wealth reputational risk committee. A full account has been published in the Daily Telegraph.
TELEGRAPH: Bank axed Farage as ‘he doesn’t align with our values’ #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/FdjPQ01FXB
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 18, 2023
According to the Telegraph, the minutes of a meeting of the wealth reputation risk committee held on 17 November 2022 say:
The committee did not think continuing to bank NF [Nigel Farage] was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.
This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose.
There are more details in our version of the story here.
The Telegraph also says the committee was told that Farage’s account was “sufficient to retain on a commercial basis” – although the bundle of documents released to Farage also included an email sent in March this year saying his account had been “below commercial criteria for some time”.
This morning, responding to the new revelations, Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, said that Coutts’ treatment of Farage had been “disgraceful”.
In an interview with Sky News, he said:
I think it is absolutely disgraceful.
I don’t have to agree with everything Nigel Farage says to recognise that free speech is a very important part of our domestic life.
What has happened with some of these banks through this regime, which is known as the PEP [politically exposed persons] regime, or politically exposed people, is really actually scandalous.
People shouldn’t have their bank accounts closed because of their political or any other view. And banks shouldn’t be refusing to open accounts on that basis as well.
Yet there is a very long-running problem within this country where banks are misapplying the guidance and rules. And not just closing accounts, but refusing to open them in the first place, and that should not be the case.
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In her Today interview Rachel Reeves said that tackling child poverty was “at the heart” of the document published by Labour earlier this month setting out details of its “breaking down barriers to opportunity” mission. (See 9.31am.)
That was not immediately obvious to readers. The document runs to 22 pages, but the phrase “child poverty” only appears three times, in this passage.
Child poverty reduction: Dedicated professionals across our education system go above and beyond every day to deliver for our children, but the barriers that too many children face – from the lack of a secure home, to not having books to read or pens to draw with – are not theirs to fix.
As part of the Opportunity Mission cross-government task force, we will involve child poverty reduction specialists at the heart of this work. Labour will put a focus on reducing child poverty at the centre of how we secure opportunity for children and young people from every background and every corner of our country.
There are three other explicit references to reducing poverty in the document.
At the press conference where this was launched, my colleague Peter Walker asked Keir Starmer why poverty reduction did not feature more prominently as a goal. In response, Starmer said that targeting poverty was “the foundation on which these missions sit” and that his government would be “laser-focused on poverty”.
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Tackling child poverty is priority for Labour, says Rachel Reeves
Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer delivered an uncompromising message, at shadow cabinet and at the Tony Blair Institute conference, to critics in his party unhappy about his declaration that the two-child benefit cap will have to stay. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, was on the Today programme this morning and, while she did not contradict her leader, she presented Labour’s stance in a very different manner.
Tackling child poverty would be a priority, she said. She told the programme:
Tackling child poverty is in Labour’s DNA. When we were last in government, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners were lifted out of poverty. Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson set out our opportunity mission just a couple of weeks ago. Child poverty was at the heart of that.
Reeves made the point in an interview with Nick Robinson during which she also said Labour would have “the most dire economic inheritance of any incoming government”. The party could not promise to do things, like lifting the two-child benefit cap, without having the money to pay for them, Reeves said.
When Robinson put it to her that a Labour colleague had said there were six other policies, like axing the two-child cap, that the party would like to implement, but could not afford to, Reeves replied:
The truth is there’s more than six things that an incoming Labour government won’t be able to do. We’re going to have the most dire economic inheritance of any incoming government. The level of debt in the UK economy is the same size as everything we produce in the economy on an annual basis. Our interest rates and inflation are a staggering high levels and our economy is barely growing. It’s barely grown these last 13 years …
It is our duty to get control of the public finances and ensure we’ve got a stable economy. It’s not a ‘nice to have’, it is the rock of stability upon which all other policies have to be built. There will be nothing in a Labour manifesto there’s not fully costed and fully funded.
But Reeves also said this did not mean Labour was not committed to tackling child poverty. That’s when she used the “in Labour’s DNA quote”.
Robinson then suggested that Starmer is only saying now he will keep the two-child cap because he wants to sound tough. Do you really think that, when you are in office, you will not be able to get rid of that? Reeves replied:
Tackling child poverty is in Labour’s DNA. When we were last in government, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners were lifted out of poverty. Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson set out our opportunity mission just a couple of weeks ago. Child poverty was at the heart of that.
That sounded like a very strong hint that, eventually, under Labour, the two-child benefit cap would go.
Reeves was giving an interview after the publication of today’s inflation figures. As Richard Partington reports, the headline rate fell further than expected in June, to 7.9%.
Graeme Wearden has more on this on his business liveblog.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Richard Moore, head of MI6, does a live Q&A with Anne McElvoy from Politico.
10am: The Conservative party will announce who has been chosen as the party’s candidate for London mayor next year. The two candidates are Susan Hall and Moz Hossain.
10am: Sarah Dines, the safeguarding minister, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about human trafficking.
10am: Counsel for core participants make closing statements on the final day of hearings at the Covid inquiry for module one, dealing with the UK’s preparedness.
12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer in the final PMQs before the summer recess.
1pm: Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, gives a speech on supporting young people.
3.40pm: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, takes part in a “fireside chat” at the Aspen security forum in the US.
5pm: Sunak addresses Tory MPs at the 1922 Committee.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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